Person
Tich Quang
Governor of Giao Chi from the time of Emperor Ping, in the first few years AD; at the end of Wang Mang's time he closed the borders and held out, and early in the Jianwu reign he sent envoys with tribute and was made marquis of Yanshui. The Book of the Later Han, in its chapter on good officials, says the civilising of Linh Nam by Chinese ways began with him and Nham Dien.
At a glance
- Dates
- Governor of Giao Chi from the time of Emperor Ping, that is, the first few years AD, some twenty years before Guangwu took the throne; still holding the land through the end of Wang Mang's time into the early Jianwu reign. The book does not record when he left the post12
- Role
- Governor of Giao Chi: he taught the people and the barbarian Di, little by little, through rites and righteousness; at the end of Wang Mang's time he closed the borders and held out, but did not proclaim himself king; early in the Jianwu reign he sent envoys with tribute and was made marquis of Yanshui1
- Origin
- A man of Hanzhong1
Life
The old chronicles say
He has no life of his own. The few lines on him are tucked inside the life of Nham Dien, opening with the word "earlier": in the time of Emperor Ping, Tich Quang, a man of Hanzhong, was governor of Giao Chi; he taught the people and the barbarian Di, little by little, through rites and righteousness, and his name for civilising them equalled Dien's. So he was not sent by Guangwu; he had been sitting in Giao Chi since the reign before. At the end of Wang Mang's time, when the north fell apart, he closed the borders and held out; early in the Jianwu reign he sent envoys with tribute and was made marquis of Yanshui. The scene recalls Trieu Da, but Tich Quang did not proclaim himself king.1
Book 86 of the Book of the Later Han has a forty-character sentence that is often quoted: when Guangwu restored the dynasty, Tich Quang was governor of Giao Chi and Nham Dien held Cuu Chan; they taught the people to plough and plant, made caps and shoes for them, first set up matchmaking, and for the first time they knew marriage, built schools. It has no dates, not one name of anyone native to the land, and every deed opens as if before that there had been nothing. Read on its own, it suggests the two were sent out together when Guangwu restored the dynasty; book 76 shows otherwise. And the teaching of ploughing, which in the life of Nham Dien is the casting of farm tools and the clearing of new land in Cuu Chan, is here attributed to both.21
The passage on him closes with the plainest piece of self-praise in the whole story: the civilising of Linh Nam by Chinese ways began with these two governors. From the time the Han destroyed Nam Viet and set up commanderies to the reign of Emperor Ping was already more than a hundred years; if this sentence is to be believed, a whole century of commanderies and districts before that had changed no customs at all. In his closing assessment of the chapter on good officials, Fan Ye names the two once more: Nham Dien and Tich Quang, who transformed the customs of the frontier, were the men whose usefulness was most plainly seen. The yardstick is stated outright: the two men's greatest achievement is that they changed the customs of the people on the frontier.143
Mentioned in
- Episode 1Ma Yuan's bronze pillars and the policy of assimilation16 min
- Episode 3Tich Quang, Nham Dien, To Dinh12 min
Sources for this page
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